British Columbia Social Credit Party leadership elections

The British Columbia Social Credit Party was a conservative political party in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. The provincial Social Credit movement was divided in its early years and was largely under the influence of the Alberta Social Credit League and did not have a functional leadership before 1952.

The 1952 leadership convention was held when the party was largely dominated by the Alberta leadership of the national social credit movement. Alberta Premier Ernest Manning hand picked Ernest George Hansell to lead the BC party into the election despite the fact that Hansell was an Alberta politician. W.A.C. Bennett was chosen party leader by Social Credit MLAs following the election.

In 1973, the party elected W.A.C. Bennett's son, Bill Bennett, on the first ballot.

All of the party's leadership conventions before 1993 were delegated, i.e., local party riding associations selected delegates to attend a convention and elect a leader by secret ballot.

The 1993 leadership election was determined by a "one-member, one-vote" system, using mail-in preferential ballots. The 1994 leadership election used the same system, but did not incorporate preferential balloting as there were only two candidates.

Held April 27, 1952

At this time the Alberta Social Credit League still dominated the British Columbia association. Hansell, an Alberta Social Credit Member of Parliament, was the hand-picked candidate of Alberta Premier Ernest Manning. Bennett and Wicks were both nominated from the floor, however, but declined allowing Hansell to be acclaimed. Following the general election in which Social Credit unexpectedly emerged as the largest party, Wicks, who was the British Columbia party's president, called a new leadership vote at which only elected Social Credit MLAs could vote. In this contest, held on July 15, 1952, Bennett defeated Philip Gaglardi by a margin of 10 to 9 to become Social Credit leader and was invited by the lieutenant-governor to become Premier of the province.

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